Reading a post by Ryan over at linkbuildr prompted me to have a little look at EMD’s (exact match domains) here in Ireland to see if we have many marketers (businesses) using them to drive traffic and business.

Over the past few years I have come across so many. But, the question is should you build a brand around this type of domain or not.

Judge for yourself

Hotels In Kerry

Wedding Cake

Flowers in Dublin

Shampoo

Cheap Laptops

I can see a strong case for having an EMD but I would also advise that you build strong content and quality links into the website.

This is a question I’m always asking myself – do business even understand the power and how well they can do with ranking high in the search engines compared to spending so much time with social media.

I see so many small companies focused on Twitter/Facebook and LinkedIn and when I look at their website I see

1.    No effort with on-page SEO
2.    No focus whatsoever on getting links into their website for backlinks.
3.    No focus with on-page conversion
4.    I cant find your phone number – oh look it’s in the footer in tiny text
5.    You list a mobile phone number on your website. Come on get a VOIP phone it will cost you €10 a month and looks professional.

OK point 3, 4 and 5 have nothing to do with SEO just a little rant sorry.

When I compare this to our UK and US friends man they are so far ahead of the game it’s unbelievable.

There are very few jobs advertised in Ireland looking for link builders most I come across say “we want you to know HTML, PHP, Java, ASP, MySql oh and be an expert in SEO”.

I see jobs for content writers that can write for search engines (so 2004 lads)

Have an understanding of Google algorithm updates ( Google have 300+ guys  with PHD’s who don’t understand it half the time themselves and end up fixing it with updates so what chance have I got with this – give me a break).

So most employers don’t understand SEO, recruitment companies don’t understand SEO (some do but very very few).

Most small businesses that are setting up have no clue what SEO is or decided to take a course and never follow up simply because it hard work/takes time and think they would be better of just using one channel (twitter or facebook) to drive clients/sales to there website.

Building links to a website takes time and its hard bloody work. Yeah I do it everyday for clients, some really get it and some don’t because they don’t see results in 2 months. It can take months to start seeing results (depending on your market and effort)

But, you know something! Once you get to the fist page for keyword/keyphrases you’ll start to see traffic, you’ll start to see sales and you might even make money.

I really really hope businesses in this country start to get what SEO/Link building is all about and that they should have some focus on it.

I know when they do-  guys like me will be fighting for this business.

I would prefer to see a healthy marketplace where people understand this business then one stuck back in 2004.

What Can Businesses Do To Rank Better

1.    Get some links to your website
2.    Do a course or hire and SEO expert to help you
3.    Once you understand SEO and how to do it go back to step 1